My Friend
Harry peeked out into the hallway to see Hermione's mom walking toward his room. 'Uh oh,' He thought, and quickly jumped under the covers. Mrs. Granger walked into the dark room to see Harry 'sleeping'. 'That's odd,' she thought, 'he is usually awake a lot longer.' She smiled to herself; 'maybe we are doing something right.' With that thought she turned from the room and left.
Harry bolted from the bed to the window, barely missing the desk next to the bed. Quickly and quietly he opened the window and crawled out. He walked to the edge of the roof, and gathering up all his courage, jumped to a rather large tree branch. He caught the branch and huge in the air while he worked his way down to the trunk of the tree. He tried to get a grip around the trunk, but it was to wide and he was too small. Therefore he fell.
He expected to hit the ground, but instead he heard a muffled yell as he hit something softer.
"Get off me please," Harry heard Anthony say. He complied, quickly apologizing for what happened.
"Well I'll get straight to the point, I need you and the girl to meet me at the park this Saturday. Around two in the afternoon, I need your help with something," said Anthony slowly. As he was turning away Harry thought he heard Anthony mutter something to the effect of "don't be late." Before Harry could even speak Anthony was gone.
"He could've just told me that on the note," Harry grumbled as he slowly worked his way back up the tree and into his room to sleep.
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For the most part the rest of the week past with out incident, well Dudley tried to be annoying but Harry was too curious about Saturday to care. It was now Thursday and Harry was watching the clock. 'Come on big hand, two more inches and its lunch time,' he silently cheered the clock on. He looked over at Hermione, who was half reading, half taking to the girl in front of her.
Looking back toward the clock, he was disappointed to see it had only moved half an inch. Something Dudley was doing caught his attention at the moment and he looked over to see his cousin brandishing his brand new slingshot. He and all his friends were grinning evilly as Dudley loaded the 'weapon' with a jagged rock.
'Crap,' Harry thought. Then his voice called out in a higher volume than was required, "who in their right mind gave you that?" He succeeded in getting the attention of the whole class and the teacher. Dudley quickly hid the slingshot and turned forward. Hermione was giving Harry a strange look that said, 'what was that about?' and Harry just shook his head. The bell rang right then and they all headed for lunch, Harry keeping an eye open for the slingshot, or any other potential weapon Dudley might have.
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"He does!" Hermione exclaimed. Harry just had informed her about the slingshot.
"Don't worry to much, if he does do something with it, your mom will have him expelled the way she is," Harry said grinning at the thought of never seeing Dudley at school again.
Hermione sat there and rolled her eyes; Harry could be so immature sometimes. Harry was looking around and spotted two of Hermione's friends walking toward them. He didn't like them much; they seemed to think that if a girl and a boy were friends, they had underlying feelings toward each other. Sure Harry liked Hermione, but he didn't 'like' Hermione.
"We have to meet Anthony on Saturday at two," Harry said quickly, "we'll have to talk about this later however," Harry said pointing to the two girls walking toward them. He hoped that Hermione wouldn't ask to many questions, but she wouldn't talk about him in front of these two. They would surely find some way to turn it into a rumor or something.
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Harry was lying in bed Friday afternoon with a black eye. It seems Dudley doesn't care too much about any punishment, as he had shot Harry the first chance he got. Mrs. Granger's complaints had landed the fat boy a week of detention.
"Harry!" Hermione's voice flew up the stairs a second before her. Harry had managed to get the day off from school, and Hermione had just returned home. She ran into his room with a huge smile on her face, she also was trying to hold in a bit of laughter. "Dudley has detention, a full week with Mr. Handan," she squeaked.
Harry grinned; Dudley had a week of detention with the gym teacher. "Well, glad to hear it," said Harry, the grin still plastered to his face.
"How are you doing?" She asked him looking at his eye.
"Fine, I'm fine," He sat up, "How about a game?"
"What game?" she asked.
"Monopoly," Harry said.
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Saturday at the park was nice. Harry and Hermione had played around a bit, seeing who could run the fastest, or who could swing the highest on the swing set there. Harry was faster than Hermione, but with her light frame, she managed to get higher then Harry could.
They were just about to start a battle of wits when Anthony showed up. "Follow me," he said and then started walking away. The two quickly jumped up and ran after him, Hermione was a bit reluctant however. They walked about a hundred feet before Anthony stopped.
He turned to them, "Harry, you know how I told you that Zach was dangerous. Well." Anthony then stopped, his eye opened up wide and he fell face first onto the ground.
Behind Anthony, Zach was grinning. He held what looked like a rather large knife, and it glowed red a bit. "Any last words Potter," Said Zach. Harry and Hermione stood there petrified. Zach's eyes were glowing red as well and his voice was wispy-like and sounded as if it was coming from far away. "I guess not," and he raised the dagger and pointed it at a spot in between them. Black energy shot forth and the two friends fell to the ground, soulless eyes gazing toward the heavens.
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Harry opened his eyes to see that he was inside of a huge crystal tower. There were many others here as well. Anthony and Hermione lay to either side of him. He woke them up and Anthony told them to stand in a circle.
"What for?" asked Hermione as she, Harry and Anthony stood in a circle, "Where are we anyway, are we dead?"
"No, not necessarily," said Anthony, "say what I say and we may be able to get out of here." Anthony then started chanting in a foreign language with Harry and Hermione trying their best to copy him. The other around them began the chant as well. Soon the noise grew so loud Hermione wanted to cover her ears but she resisted. The walls began to crack and dark energy ran up and down the sides like lightning.
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Zach smiled at the three bodies around him. "It is finally done I can complete the summoning," he said aloud and was about to perform the ritual when an old voice stopped him.
"What in the name of Merlin are you doing boy." Zach looked over to see an old woman standing not ten feet away.
"Buzz off you old wind bag," Zach spat, "you're to weak to stop me now, I can sense it. All your power is gone."
The old woman took a shaky step toward him. "You ought to respect your elders, you never know what misfortune you'll come across if you don't."
"Your threats are only words," Zach grinned, "mine however." He stopped talking and pointed the dagger at her. "They are much more substantial."
"You'll only die if you try that summoning ritual, you need to have all of the required souls," the old woman said pointing her finger at the dagger. Zach looked at it, cracks were forming around the outside and dark energy was poring from those cracks.
"What magic is this you hag!" Zach screamed, "I have all the souls, nothing should be able to stop me."
"You are mistaken, one soul is still free," she smiled, "my grandson."
"No, I have his soul right here!" he said waving the dagger that was looking more likely to explode any moment.
"The soul of my son, yes," she smiled again, "He faked his death, then transfigured his body to match his son's, hiding his son and his wife from your senses. I then transferred my remaining power to him so he would be strong enough to destroy that ancient, vile dagger. That also means your master will be forever trapped in the outworld."
"No, no, no, NO!" He moved as if to throw the weapon at her, but it self-destructed just then. Bright energies flew everywhere, gaining a few glances from some of the people in the area. Shanna, as the old lady was called, did a quick repelling charm. The people then went back to there own business, forgetting the light display.
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Harry woke up as his body and soul became one again, and looked forward to see the hilt of the dagger spinning in the air. Souls were streaming forth from the spot where the blade should have been. One flew out and right into Hermione's body. She awoke with a gasp.
Anthony was already up and talking to a nearby old lady. As the hilt hit the ground, their conversation ended and she left. He walked over and picked the hilt up.
"You both look a bit confused," he said to them, only now he looked like he was in his mid-thirties. "Any questions?" he asked them.
They both had many questions but neither of them could speak.
"All right then, I suppose I should let you two know that that kid Zach was actually an old wizard channeling an evil spirit from outworld, the spirit world if you will. To fully summon the evil spirit he needed a certain number of souls, but back many years ago my ancestors found out what he was doing and cursed him. To breach the curse he need all of my ancestor's descendant's souls, as well as the rest of the required souls."
"Why us though?" asked Hermione. Harry looked at her wondering if she understood all of this.
"Because each of you is a descendant of one of the children of mana, as we called them," he said. "The power that travels in your blood can skip a few generations. Harry is starting to develop it even now, in his ability to 'predict' danger. You will find out about it soon enough, it likes to show itself around your eighth birthday. I'm sorry but I can't tell you much, as I have only known one other like you, and he was taken not soon after I meet him. I can, however, leave you with his book. It should shine some light on all of this."
He handed them a large, worn, old-looking book. Harry and Hermione could barely read the cover. When they turned the page the writing was all obscured. "How are we supposed to read this?" asked Harry.
"I believe he said, 'when the time is right, the children of mana will see,' whatever that means. I, however, have to take my leave of you and get back to my family. If you're ever in New York stop bye." Then they both heard a pop and Anthony vanished.
"Now I'm even more confused," said Harry; "For once I'd like to understand what is going on with all the magic stuff. I though magic wasn't real."
"Yeah, I guess when we are ready we'll find out, eh?" said Hermione, standing up.
"Well, I want to be ready right now," Harry said, pouting.
"Patience is a virtue," remind Hermione.
"Yeah right," said Harry, "you can honestly say that your okay with feeling lost and confused?"
"Well, umm, not really." said Hermione.
"Exactly," Harry cut her off, glad that she at least felt the same as him.
"Harry! Hermione! Time to go!" Mrs. Granger called.
"Let's go," Hermione said grabbing Harry's hand and pulling him toward her mom.
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Thanks to TimGold, Star Mage1, lordanhur and the following.
Ambookworm247 - I just finished the plot I had going for this part of their lives, I'll probably speed up to their first year now.
Mia - thank you for reviewing again and for thanking me, I won't get to any romance until they're around sixteen, kind of don't know how I'm going to do it yet either.
Sushinase - Thank you for all your reviews, and to clear up your confusion, Harry is 8, and Hermione is, well, almost 8. No, sadly I don't have a beta reader, I just do my best at editing myself, even though I'm a terrible speller.
Well good night, I should really get some sleep,
CFX
Harry peeked out into the hallway to see Hermione's mom walking toward his room. 'Uh oh,' He thought, and quickly jumped under the covers. Mrs. Granger walked into the dark room to see Harry 'sleeping'. 'That's odd,' she thought, 'he is usually awake a lot longer.' She smiled to herself; 'maybe we are doing something right.' With that thought she turned from the room and left.
Harry bolted from the bed to the window, barely missing the desk next to the bed. Quickly and quietly he opened the window and crawled out. He walked to the edge of the roof, and gathering up all his courage, jumped to a rather large tree branch. He caught the branch and huge in the air while he worked his way down to the trunk of the tree. He tried to get a grip around the trunk, but it was to wide and he was too small. Therefore he fell.
He expected to hit the ground, but instead he heard a muffled yell as he hit something softer.
"Get off me please," Harry heard Anthony say. He complied, quickly apologizing for what happened.
"Well I'll get straight to the point, I need you and the girl to meet me at the park this Saturday. Around two in the afternoon, I need your help with something," said Anthony slowly. As he was turning away Harry thought he heard Anthony mutter something to the effect of "don't be late." Before Harry could even speak Anthony was gone.
"He could've just told me that on the note," Harry grumbled as he slowly worked his way back up the tree and into his room to sleep.
************************************************************************
For the most part the rest of the week past with out incident, well Dudley tried to be annoying but Harry was too curious about Saturday to care. It was now Thursday and Harry was watching the clock. 'Come on big hand, two more inches and its lunch time,' he silently cheered the clock on. He looked over at Hermione, who was half reading, half taking to the girl in front of her.
Looking back toward the clock, he was disappointed to see it had only moved half an inch. Something Dudley was doing caught his attention at the moment and he looked over to see his cousin brandishing his brand new slingshot. He and all his friends were grinning evilly as Dudley loaded the 'weapon' with a jagged rock.
'Crap,' Harry thought. Then his voice called out in a higher volume than was required, "who in their right mind gave you that?" He succeeded in getting the attention of the whole class and the teacher. Dudley quickly hid the slingshot and turned forward. Hermione was giving Harry a strange look that said, 'what was that about?' and Harry just shook his head. The bell rang right then and they all headed for lunch, Harry keeping an eye open for the slingshot, or any other potential weapon Dudley might have.
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"He does!" Hermione exclaimed. Harry just had informed her about the slingshot.
"Don't worry to much, if he does do something with it, your mom will have him expelled the way she is," Harry said grinning at the thought of never seeing Dudley at school again.
Hermione sat there and rolled her eyes; Harry could be so immature sometimes. Harry was looking around and spotted two of Hermione's friends walking toward them. He didn't like them much; they seemed to think that if a girl and a boy were friends, they had underlying feelings toward each other. Sure Harry liked Hermione, but he didn't 'like' Hermione.
"We have to meet Anthony on Saturday at two," Harry said quickly, "we'll have to talk about this later however," Harry said pointing to the two girls walking toward them. He hoped that Hermione wouldn't ask to many questions, but she wouldn't talk about him in front of these two. They would surely find some way to turn it into a rumor or something.
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Harry was lying in bed Friday afternoon with a black eye. It seems Dudley doesn't care too much about any punishment, as he had shot Harry the first chance he got. Mrs. Granger's complaints had landed the fat boy a week of detention.
"Harry!" Hermione's voice flew up the stairs a second before her. Harry had managed to get the day off from school, and Hermione had just returned home. She ran into his room with a huge smile on her face, she also was trying to hold in a bit of laughter. "Dudley has detention, a full week with Mr. Handan," she squeaked.
Harry grinned; Dudley had a week of detention with the gym teacher. "Well, glad to hear it," said Harry, the grin still plastered to his face.
"How are you doing?" She asked him looking at his eye.
"Fine, I'm fine," He sat up, "How about a game?"
"What game?" she asked.
"Monopoly," Harry said.
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Saturday at the park was nice. Harry and Hermione had played around a bit, seeing who could run the fastest, or who could swing the highest on the swing set there. Harry was faster than Hermione, but with her light frame, she managed to get higher then Harry could.
They were just about to start a battle of wits when Anthony showed up. "Follow me," he said and then started walking away. The two quickly jumped up and ran after him, Hermione was a bit reluctant however. They walked about a hundred feet before Anthony stopped.
He turned to them, "Harry, you know how I told you that Zach was dangerous. Well." Anthony then stopped, his eye opened up wide and he fell face first onto the ground.
Behind Anthony, Zach was grinning. He held what looked like a rather large knife, and it glowed red a bit. "Any last words Potter," Said Zach. Harry and Hermione stood there petrified. Zach's eyes were glowing red as well and his voice was wispy-like and sounded as if it was coming from far away. "I guess not," and he raised the dagger and pointed it at a spot in between them. Black energy shot forth and the two friends fell to the ground, soulless eyes gazing toward the heavens.
************************************************************************
Harry opened his eyes to see that he was inside of a huge crystal tower. There were many others here as well. Anthony and Hermione lay to either side of him. He woke them up and Anthony told them to stand in a circle.
"What for?" asked Hermione as she, Harry and Anthony stood in a circle, "Where are we anyway, are we dead?"
"No, not necessarily," said Anthony, "say what I say and we may be able to get out of here." Anthony then started chanting in a foreign language with Harry and Hermione trying their best to copy him. The other around them began the chant as well. Soon the noise grew so loud Hermione wanted to cover her ears but she resisted. The walls began to crack and dark energy ran up and down the sides like lightning.
************************************************************************
Zach smiled at the three bodies around him. "It is finally done I can complete the summoning," he said aloud and was about to perform the ritual when an old voice stopped him.
"What in the name of Merlin are you doing boy." Zach looked over to see an old woman standing not ten feet away.
"Buzz off you old wind bag," Zach spat, "you're to weak to stop me now, I can sense it. All your power is gone."
The old woman took a shaky step toward him. "You ought to respect your elders, you never know what misfortune you'll come across if you don't."
"Your threats are only words," Zach grinned, "mine however." He stopped talking and pointed the dagger at her. "They are much more substantial."
"You'll only die if you try that summoning ritual, you need to have all of the required souls," the old woman said pointing her finger at the dagger. Zach looked at it, cracks were forming around the outside and dark energy was poring from those cracks.
"What magic is this you hag!" Zach screamed, "I have all the souls, nothing should be able to stop me."
"You are mistaken, one soul is still free," she smiled, "my grandson."
"No, I have his soul right here!" he said waving the dagger that was looking more likely to explode any moment.
"The soul of my son, yes," she smiled again, "He faked his death, then transfigured his body to match his son's, hiding his son and his wife from your senses. I then transferred my remaining power to him so he would be strong enough to destroy that ancient, vile dagger. That also means your master will be forever trapped in the outworld."
"No, no, no, NO!" He moved as if to throw the weapon at her, but it self-destructed just then. Bright energies flew everywhere, gaining a few glances from some of the people in the area. Shanna, as the old lady was called, did a quick repelling charm. The people then went back to there own business, forgetting the light display.
************************************************************************
Harry woke up as his body and soul became one again, and looked forward to see the hilt of the dagger spinning in the air. Souls were streaming forth from the spot where the blade should have been. One flew out and right into Hermione's body. She awoke with a gasp.
Anthony was already up and talking to a nearby old lady. As the hilt hit the ground, their conversation ended and she left. He walked over and picked the hilt up.
"You both look a bit confused," he said to them, only now he looked like he was in his mid-thirties. "Any questions?" he asked them.
They both had many questions but neither of them could speak.
"All right then, I suppose I should let you two know that that kid Zach was actually an old wizard channeling an evil spirit from outworld, the spirit world if you will. To fully summon the evil spirit he needed a certain number of souls, but back many years ago my ancestors found out what he was doing and cursed him. To breach the curse he need all of my ancestor's descendant's souls, as well as the rest of the required souls."
"Why us though?" asked Hermione. Harry looked at her wondering if she understood all of this.
"Because each of you is a descendant of one of the children of mana, as we called them," he said. "The power that travels in your blood can skip a few generations. Harry is starting to develop it even now, in his ability to 'predict' danger. You will find out about it soon enough, it likes to show itself around your eighth birthday. I'm sorry but I can't tell you much, as I have only known one other like you, and he was taken not soon after I meet him. I can, however, leave you with his book. It should shine some light on all of this."
He handed them a large, worn, old-looking book. Harry and Hermione could barely read the cover. When they turned the page the writing was all obscured. "How are we supposed to read this?" asked Harry.
"I believe he said, 'when the time is right, the children of mana will see,' whatever that means. I, however, have to take my leave of you and get back to my family. If you're ever in New York stop bye." Then they both heard a pop and Anthony vanished.
"Now I'm even more confused," said Harry; "For once I'd like to understand what is going on with all the magic stuff. I though magic wasn't real."
"Yeah, I guess when we are ready we'll find out, eh?" said Hermione, standing up.
"Well, I want to be ready right now," Harry said, pouting.
"Patience is a virtue," remind Hermione.
"Yeah right," said Harry, "you can honestly say that your okay with feeling lost and confused?"
"Well, umm, not really." said Hermione.
"Exactly," Harry cut her off, glad that she at least felt the same as him.
"Harry! Hermione! Time to go!" Mrs. Granger called.
"Let's go," Hermione said grabbing Harry's hand and pulling him toward her mom.
************************************************************************
Thanks to TimGold, Star Mage1, lordanhur and the following.
Ambookworm247 - I just finished the plot I had going for this part of their lives, I'll probably speed up to their first year now.
Mia - thank you for reviewing again and for thanking me, I won't get to any romance until they're around sixteen, kind of don't know how I'm going to do it yet either.
Sushinase - Thank you for all your reviews, and to clear up your confusion, Harry is 8, and Hermione is, well, almost 8. No, sadly I don't have a beta reader, I just do my best at editing myself, even though I'm a terrible speller.
Well good night, I should really get some sleep,
CFX